INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE APPLE AND PEAR 559 



nine or ten weeks after the petals fall, and a fourth two or three 

 weeks later may be necessary. With thorough spraying not 

 over 1 or 2 per cent of the picked fruit should be wormy, as 

 most of the wormy fruit will drop early in the season. 



Recent experiments have shown that quite as effective codling 

 moth control can be secured by dusting with powdered arsenate 

 of lead with sulphur as the carrier. Some of the advantages of 

 dusting are discussed under the description of the dusting practice 

 in an early chapter. 



The Apple-maggot or " Railroad Worm " * 



The apple-maggot has long been known as the worst pest of 

 summer and fall apples in the New England States, and has 

 extended its injuries to eastern New York and southeastern 

 Canada. It has been recorded from Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, 

 Minnesota, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, but seems to be only 

 occasionally injurious there, though it has been reared from 

 haws in Illinois and Wisconsin, which would indicate that the 

 insect is native in those States. Evidently it is widely distributed 

 throughout the northeastern United States, but for some reason 

 is most injurious in New England. The fruit is injured by the 

 small white maggots, which burrow through the flesh, leaving 

 discolored streaks through it, often becoming so numerous as 

 entirely to honeycomb the pulp which breaks down into a yellowish 

 mass merely held together by the skin. An apple quite fair 

 exteriorly will often be found to be almost completely "rail- 

 roaded" by the maggots, although brown, slightly sunken 

 streaks in the skin usually indicate their presence. Sweet and 

 subacid varieties of summer and early fall apples are worst injured, 

 but where the pest develops unchecked, winter sorts, such as the 

 Baldwin and particularly the Northern Spy, are often seriously 

 injured. 



The parent of the maggot is a little fly slightly smaller than 

 the house-fly, of a blackish color, with yellowish head and legs, 



* Rhagoletis pomonella Walsh. Family Trypetidce. See A. L. Quaintance 

 Circular 101, Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Dept. Agr.; F. L. Harvey, Report 

 Maine Agr. Exp. Sta., 1889, p. 190; W. C. O'Kane, Journal of Economic 

 Entomology, IV, 173, and Bulletin N. H. Expt. Sta. No. 171, also H. H. P. 

 Severin, Bulletin 251, Maine Agr. Expt. Sta. 



